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Tuesday, November 22, 2016

Donald Trump's First 100 Days (AM Edition): "Trump Announces On Twitter He Canceled Meeting With 'New York Times'"

The morning after venting at top television news executives and anchors about their coverage of his presidential campaign, Donald Trump announced he had canceled planned meetings with executives and journalists at The New York Times.
At 6:16 a.m. Tuesday, Trump tweeted that the Times had sought to change the ground rules of their meetings, which he termed "not nice...."
The top spokeswoman for the newspaper, Eileen Murphy, contradicted Trump's account in an email to NPR. Murphy said that the Times "was unaware that the meeting was cancelled until we saw the President-Elect's tweet this morning."
She said there had been two planned sessions: The first, a smaller one, was to be off-the-record. At the second, Trump's camp had agreed he would respond to questions, on the record, from a group of the paper's reporters, columnists and editors.
Trump had sought to eliminate the longer on-the-record meeting; according to Murphy, the Times refused, and then Trump's camp seemingly agreed to revert to the original understanding.
Trump said in a subsequent tweet that it was possible a new meeting could be arranged with the Times. But he continued: "In the meantime they continue to cover me inaccurately and with a nasty tone!" Read More

Trump wants everything on his own terms, including news coverage. However, a free press means unflattering photographs and unsettling news reports. It means close scrutiny of everything that he says and does, and exposure of the fabrications, the inconsistencies, the false statements, and the undisclosed facts. It means that Trump will not be able to shape how others perceive him and his presidency. It means most importantly that Trump will be held to account for what he says and does - something to which he is not accustomed.

Interesting. Resembles the kind of shenanigans in which Trump engaged in his business dealings - cancel a meeting to put pressure on the other party. Is Trump hoping to cut a special deal with The New York Times. I would not put it past him.

One of the results of Trump's"protectionist" policies, if they can be deemed that, will be that China will come out on top and not the American worker. The United States will loose prestige and influence in the Pacific, as well as suffer economic setbacks.